Arctic Initiative Spring Study Group: Financing Climate Resilience

The Arctic is warming two to three times faster than the rest of the planet and rapidly transforming into a new climate state. The Harvard Kennedy School's Arctic Initiative is developing science and policy collaborations to address urgent climate adaptation and resilience needs, but all of the science and policy expertise in the world will not help without increased investments to support resilience actions.

International funding institutions like the Green Climate Fund have earmarked over $100bn for adaptation and resilience measures in developing countries, but despite being on the front lines of climate change, Arctic communities — located in developed countries — are ineligible for such funds. Therefore, Arctic communities must identify new sources of capital and design new strategies to attract additional investments that have a net positive influence on resilience in the region.

In 2015, the World Economic Forum introduced the Arctic Investment Protocol as a first step toward inclusive, transparent, and measurable sustainable development in the Arctic. In 2016, the Arctic Council published an Arctic Resilience Assessment and followed it up in 2017 with the Arctic Resilience Action Framework (ARAF) to track resilience actions and identify gaps. One of the four priority areas for the ARAF was fostering resilience investment.

Significant market developments since then have created an opportunity for an HKS team to overlay these documents and provide an update of opportunities and next steps for advancing institutional investment in Arctic resilience. The Study Group will provide this report to the Arctic Council's Sustainable Development Working Group, the Arctic Economic Council, and participating investors.

The Study Group will consist of five weekly sessions featuring working sessions and Q&A with leading Arctic scientists, policymakers, indigenous knowledge-holders, and finance experts.

The Study Group will be led by Arctic Initiative Senior Fellow Joel Clement, an Arctic policy leader and former federal climate change whistleblower, and Graham Sinclair , a subject matter expert on sustainable investment and an Environmental, Social, and Governance architect with decades of experience working with development financing institutions.

Tuesdays from 6pm – 7:30pm, February 4 – March 10, 2020, in Belfer-400 (Land Lecture Hall).

To ensure that we can deliver a quality product to the client, students will have intersession work to complete and may choose to attend one or two daytime events at HKS featuring experts in resilience and finance.

For more information or to sign-up, please contact brittany_janis@hks.harvard.edu. Space is limited; please register by February 4.